sore.
Causing pain or discomfort; painfully sensitive.
Meaning & usage
Causing pain or discomfort; painfully sensitive.
Her feet were sore from walking so far.
Sensitive; tender; easily pained, grieved, or vexed; very susceptible of irritation.
Dire; distressing.
The school was in sore need of textbooks, theirs having been ruined in the flood.
Feeling animosity towards someone; annoyed or angered.
Joe was sore at Bob for beating him at checkers.
Criminal; wrong; evil.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).
Very, excessively, extremely (of something bad).
Sorely.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).
An injured, infected, inflamed or diseased patch of skin.
They put ointment and a bandage on the sore.
Grief; affliction; trouble; difficulty.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).
To mutilate the legs or feet of (a horse) in order to induce a particular gait.
To grow sores; to be beset with skin lesions.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sor, from Old English sār (“ache, wound”, noun) and sār (“painful, grievous”, adjective), from Proto-West Germanic *sair, from Proto-Germanic *sairaz (adjective) from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂iro-, enlargement of *seh₂y- (“to be fierce, afflict”). See also Dutch zeer (“sore, ache”), Danish sår (“wound”), German sehr (“very”); also Hittite [script needed] (sāwar, “anger”), Welsh hoed (“pain”), Ancient Greek αἱμωδία (haimōdía, “sensation of having teeth on edge”).
A young hawk or falcon in its first year.
A young buck in its fourth year.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sor (“sorrel”), from Old French sor (“sorrel; reddish”). Compare French saur (“(archaic) reddish-brown; describing a young bird of prey”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.